Garmin - Dash Cam™ 45 Full HD - Black

Keep extra eyes on the road with this GPS-enabled Garmin dash cam. It records high-quality images in HD or Full HD, and its built-in Wi-Fi lets you share captured footage with friends via the VIRB mobile app. This 2.1-megapixel Garmin dash cam includes a 4GB microSD card, and it automatically detects and saves incident scenes with its G-sensor.

Low-profile magnetic mount

Records high-definition video directly to the microSD card

Notice: Some jurisdictions regulate or prohibit use of this device. It is your responsibility to know and comply with applicable laws and rights to privacy in jurisdictions where you plan to use this device.

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Most relevant reviews

Great Camera, but could use App/WiFi improvements

Posted 1 year ago

Shep4523

Elite Plus Member

I purchased this dash cam a few days ago and I can honestly say I’m impressed. Video resolution is decent (HD, but not 4K) and it does record audio as well. You are able to turn the audio recording off. It comes with a 4GB micro SD card but I recommend getting a larger one to keep the camera from deleting the oldest videos to a minimum. It can accept up to 64 GB micro SD card. It has a magnetic mount to your windshield, not the standard suction cup mount. It stays in place over speed bumps and potholes well. The camera also has lane drifting warnings and forward collision warnings, as well as traffic moving ahead warnings (to tell you to “GO!”). All warnings have a beeping noise and a notice on the lcd display. It also can alert you to stop lights and speed cameras on your route (but to keep that updated, you will need to purchase a recurring monthly payment plan). It does record in either 1080p or 720p at 30fps.
The camera works well and does what it is designed to do. It does not have voice activation. You can use the VIRB app to download video clips right to your phone or tablet, but the app is spartan when it comes to editing features. You can put a title on your clip and other comments, but not really much else.
The WiFi works well with your smartphone, but viewing videos on it through the app (before you download them to your phone) is slow, and buffers a lot. You will need to connect your phone to the camera WiFi every time you want to use the app. It will not record and allow you to view or download videos unless you are connected to your 12v adapter or usb connection to a laptop (you can’t use the USB cord in a USB power outlet and connect to the phone. It has to be on the 12V power, or you have to remove the SDcard and plug it into a laptop or computer). You also can’t move away from the app when it is downloading a video to your phone.
Overall, very nice camera. I really like the design and small form factor. I am disappointed that you cannot use the parking feature without purchasing a separate wiring harness for $35. However, do you really want to take a chance of leaving this relatively expensive camera in your parked car exposed and unattended?
I recommend this camera as a good middle of the road dash cam. It does what it says it will do.

I would recommend this to a friend

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Rocel

Elite Plus Member

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Save me from False Witness!!!!

Posted 7 months ago

Rocel

Elite Plus Member

I bought this dash cam sometime January of this year. I had an accident last month September 2018 that totaled my car. I was on my right of way "ALL GREEN" when the lady driver cut me and turned left. Cops came after the accident and an apparent witness came to the rescue of the 89 year old woman driver saying that It was my fault that I crossed a red light. I was sure and 100% confident that I did not beat the red light but became unsure when this false witness came.
After reviewing the video, it captured the whole accident and showed that I was on GREEN when crossing the intersection and even after the accident, the camera was clinging the GREEN light was still on.
I showed this as evidence to the insurance company of the other party and after them reviewing it immediately decided in favor of my case. They did not ask for my verbal testimony as the Garmin Dash Cam served as my WITNESS AND MY TESTIMONY.
I highly recommend and I will strongly advocate for all drivers to have DASH CAM in their car. Not only it will tell the truth, it can help when you witness an accident, just press the record button and it will record the last 3 minutes i believe. Likewise if you are wrongly ticketed by COPS, bring it to the court to help you dismiss your case.
I am a believer of DASH CAM specially when the accident happened to me and a FALSE witness came to help the guilty party.
Thank you Garmin for a great little device

I would recommend this to a friend

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Mark

Verified Purchase

Elite Member

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Excellent All-Around Dash Cam

Posted 3 months ago

Mark

Verified Purchase

Elite Member

I just purchased this dash cam after several hours of research to replace my current camera of another brand, which I was very unhappy with. I live in New York City and park in a parking garage, so don’t use my car every day. I found that the battery in my old camera kept losing its charge, which reset the time and date back to factory settings, requiring me to always need to set the proper date/time. The most important criteria for me was to find a camera that would retain the accurate date/time, in addition to allowing me to disable the speed reporting stamp on the video, as I can’t see how that would do anything but work against me in a legal defense. This camera allows that, while at the same time being able to retain the GPS location stamp. Plus, the calendar and clock use GPS to keep the time current, so I don’t need to worry about the battery losing charge. Perfect!! This camera works great, and is much smaller than I thought it would be. Another plus! It doesn’t have as much of a wide angle view as others, so if you’re looking for that, I recommend the Garmin 65W. The camera adheres to the windshield using a separate metal disk, about the size of a penny, that has an adhesive back, and the camera arm connects to that via a magnet. Very easy to take the camera off and move to other cars, without having to worry about using an annoying suction cup that always fails. Be sure to double check the position of the camera through its screen before you mount the metal disk, because it’s practically impossible to pull it off once it’s on the windshield. I’m MUCH happier with this camera. Highly recommend!!

I would recommend this to a friend

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HikerBob

Verified Purchase

Member

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Garmin 45 Dash Cam

Posted 10 months ago

HikerBob

Verified Purchase

Member

5 Stars: Ease of operation, basically plug and play. 1080P Video quality is Excellent. Small size is very unobtrusive when mounted on windshield. Audio quality is also very good. All videos are automatically labeled with date/time, lat/long and vehicle speed, which was a big plus for me. The dash cam came with a 8Gb microSD card but I replaced it with a 64Gb microSD for greater storage capacity.
Dash Cam comes with cigarette power cable which was easy to route along my car's headliner. I have ordered the "hard wired" power cable, so I can utilize the cam's "parking mode" feature, which requires the cam to be hard wired. I recommend doing the same, otherwise the Dash Cam will only record video while the ignition is on.
I also purchased a 37mm Circular Polaroid Lens (CPL) filter and 28-37mm adapter mount that fitted over the dash cam's lens to cut down on early morning/late afternoon windshield glare (see second attached photo).
For total hands-free operation, go with the Garmin 55 Dash Cam. A little more expensive, the same size as the 45 but with voice recognition vs manual buttons

I would recommend this to a friend

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Thomas

Verified Purchase

Elite Plus Member

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

Good camera for Alaska

Posted 10 months ago

Thomas

Verified Purchase

Elite Plus Member

Purchased first camera in mid May 2018, that camera failed after roughly 2 weeks. Immediately exchanged it and now the second camera has failed after roughly 6 weeks. The camera system itself is pretty good, if you live in Alaska, the Pacific NW, or you are willing to unplug the camera and remove it from the car if you are in any season other than winter. Short of that, and from my experience with TWO cameras thus far, its just a matter of time before it burns out. I had the camera set to power down when the vehicle was off, started the car up on a warm day, and dead........again.......I wouldn't even remotely consider using this unit as a hardwired continual recording camera. I own plenty of Garmin products and they typically handle whatever I throw at them for as long as I can throw it at them, but not this device. This camera is, without question, the lowest quality Garmin product I've ever owned. If they could make this camera as temperature tolerant as their Fenix 5X wrist watch or any other device they make, it would be a no brainer.......but as it stands, I'm still considering whether its even worth it or not to go through the whole warranty process to replace this camera in order to get a third stick of butter to put on my windshield........

No, I would not recommend this to a friend

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Legitbrian

Verified Purchase

Member

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Great Investment

Posted 1 month ago

Legitbrian

Verified Purchase

Member

I have this installed by a geek squad so I’m not sure how difficult it is for DIY. This camera is installed on my 2018 Honda Odyssey. It’s a great dash camera and so far since last year, it’s been performing flawlessly. The camera is small so it doesn’t protrude vision out front. I live in Los Angeles, so heat was somewhat a concern for the reliability of the camera but, again no issues. It has features such as Lane Keeping Assist, Alerts, Stop sign recognition, and a VIRB Mobile App used to import videos and photos from dash cam to your mobile device. The dash camera even alerts you when a traffic camera ticket is available on the intersection.
Now for the cons, the features are kinda annoying. For example, the camera traffic camera ticket feature is annoying because, it’s GPS based so when I drive on the highway, it still alerts me even though the intersection is on the bottom of me. Secondly, the distance feature is crap because, once a car changed onto my lane he was extremely far out so it shouldn’t alert me but, it did.
Ultimately I think it’s a good camera as long as if you turn off some of those features and if you can find one for around $140 as of 04/17/19. Any price higher than that is paying full price and this camera is quite old already. Thus, it’s a buy! Depending on the price.

I would recommend this to a friend

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TW74

Verified Purchase

Elite Member

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Works Great!

Posted 11 months ago

TW74

Verified Purchase

Elite Member

Has pretty good image quality and connects to the mobile app or computer just fine. Make sure you set it up first and set the loop option or it will just run out of space. I would recommend the 64gb micro SD card for it instead of the one it comes with because you will want more storage.
What i like is the Time Lapse mode. Its just fun to place with.
And yes it still records video and incidents while you are in timelapse mode (as i have found out buy trying it out).
Image quality is better than my Car&Driver 1 Eye Pro (in my opinion) and feels to be more of a solid unit.
The only cons i have are the mount. (But not big cons)
You get one plate and 2 mounting adhesive pads.
If you live in a place, or drive anywhere, that causes you to get a few windshields a year i would either one MOVE or invest in buying more adhesive pads from Garmin. (option 1 would probably be best)
BUT if you are not in that type of place then it is AWESOME!
Device is easy to use, intuitive, and you can turn things off/on may settings that you don't want as part of the recording. It records sounds (and my terrible commentaries/outbursts ;) while i am driving - but that too can be turned off)
All in all great little unit i actually purchase two and put one in each of my vehicles (you can name the unit)

I would recommend this to a friend

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halfricanguy

Member

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

All around great dashcam worth the price

Posted 1 year ago

halfricanguy

Member

This is my first dashcam and definitely one I'll be keeping for a while. Mine is located just to the left of the rear view mirror. Know that you can't just open it up and start recording; the mount is magnetic based (which is good, you can remove it from sight when you need to, or between cars) but you'll need to position the mount on the windshield and let it rest for 24 hours before use. During this time, you can be updating the firmware and learning the functionality.
Records video and sound well (a little too well, I can hear my awful voice crystal clear while singing to music haha). Picture at night is surprisingly better than I thought, and it can generally see what you can. Have had no deal-breaking issues such as overheating.
As for the three gimmicky features; Lane Departure and Forward Collision alerts work better than I imagined, even at night. For lane departure warnings to work, the line must be solid white/yellow, so it won't alert you if you're floating into another actual lane. "Traffic is moving" warning on the other hand is finnicky and alerts me after I've already began moving with the traffic. I'll have to adjust the sensitivity levels a bit. I would NOT rely on any of these three because they are not always accurate, and on occasion will either falsely alert you or not alert you at all. Otherwise a great dashcam!

Best answer: The Dashcam 45 can hold up to a 64GB micro SD with a speed rating of class 10 or higher. The recording time depends on whether you have the camera fully charged or plugged into a power supply or hard wired. The recording time also depends on your SD card size. A smaller card will hold less data and will have data over written. You can find more answers at http://static.garmin.com/pumac/DashCam_45-55_OM_EN.pdf

Best answer: The number of hours of video that can be recorded is mainly determined by the size of the microSD card installed. The factory sends it with a 4 GB card, but you can easily replace this with a 64 GB card.
Another factor that will affect the recording ability is how much data you choose to "save" on the card. The more pictures or videos that you manually save (as well as video automatically saved during a collision) will reduce the amount of storage available for the looping recording.
If you have manually saved pictures or videos, transfer them to a computer. AFTER you have done that, reformat the SD card, which will erase everything currently stored on it.
If you want a lower quality recording, you can also reduce the resolution and FPS setting, which should allow longer videos to be recorded.

Best answer: Good question. The Data Overlay field is the ribbon of information that appears across the bottom of all recorded videos. This information includes the Garmin logo, current date/time, location coordinates and speed. The date/time, location and speed fields can all be turned off so they don’t appear on the video.